


Meet Me In The Hall of Heroes

by joannalannister (tywinning), tywinning



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, pre-asoiaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:59:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/pseuds/joannalannister, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/pseuds/tywinning
Summary: A ghost story for House Lannister





	Meet Me In The Hall of Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this fic on tumblr in 2012.

“Meet me in the Hall of Heroes!” Jaime called over his shoulder, running.

Tyrion thought his big brother’s words were directed at him. He never saw Cersei, high above them on the balcony.

Tyrion had only been to the crypts once. A maester had taken him there, briefly. He wanted to go with Jaime. He ran after his brother, but Jaime was so much faster. He was soon out of sight.

Tyrion turned right, to the crypts, where Jaime had turned left, to the practice yard, for his lessons.

The heavy redwood door was too much for Tyrion, only five, to open by himself. He tugged, and tugged, and tugged.

_“Jaime! Jaime, help me!”_

He tugged again. He fell on his bottom when the door opened smoothly. He smiled and looked up at where his brother should be standing in the doorway. No one was there.

He looked down the long flight of stairs, going deep into the Rock. The torches set in the walls burned brightly, welcomingly. He started down.

“Jaime!”

_Jaimejaimejaime_ his own voice echoed back.

He reached the bottom, and called again for his brother.

Only the lions greeted him

Row upon row, as far as Tyrion could see, lions cast of solid gold reclined atop raised sepulchers, guarding the graves of Lannisters. The torchlight flickered, casting a warm glow that made them seem alive.

They roared.

His maester had explained that the noise was the sound of the sea beneath them, traveling up through the Rock. Tyrion didn’t believe him.

He wandered among the dead, every so often calling for Jaime, but still no one answered. He looked at the statues above him as he passed. Each lion was different. Some slept, while others watched him pass, paws crossed over a sword. Most wore solemn expressions. A few smiled. One wept.

The tombs were different sizes. Some of them had ten names carved into the marble, some two. Others had only one.

Tyrion paused beneath one lion. It was the only statue of a cub, smaller than all the rest. The sepulcher beneath was smaller too. “JUSTINIA 212 AL”. The cub’s sad eyes frightened him. He didn’t to be here anymore.

“ _JAIME!_ I don’t want to play peak-and-sneak anymore! Please! You win! Please come out!”

His brother didn’t come out.

“Fine! I’m leaving!” He turned around to retrace his steps, back to the stairs, back up into the sunlight.

Left. Left. Right. Left. He should have been able to see the stairs by now. Instead, there was only darkness ahead of him. Tyrion stayed in the last circle of light. He looked at the golden lion to his left. He was sleeping, indifferent to the dark. He looked to his right, and forgot the darkness in surprise.

There were two. A lion and a lioness.

The sepulcher was large enough to hold two, but only one name was carved into the marble.

JOANNA

Tyrion lightly touched the letters of his mother’s name.

Beneath was the year he was born.

He looked away, up at the lioness.

She was exquisite. The finely wrought goldwork showed every detail. All she lacked was breath.

Where all the lions had lain atop their sepulchers, the lioness sat proudly, as if on a throne. Her mate lay beside her. A golden pendant hung around her neck. Cersei wore one like it, but she had never let him close enough to examine it.

Tyrion tried to reach the necklace, but he was much too short. He started climbing up the side of the sepulcher. The elaborate carvings provided ample toe holds. Nearly at the top, he _reached_. It was almost his. His fingers closed around it.

And then he slipped.

He crashed to the floor, the pendant still clutched in his hand. Tyrion looked down at it. The chain was broken now.

“No. No. _No no no no no_.”

“Tyrion! 

Tyrion looked up in fear. For a moment he thought it was his father, but it was only Uncle Gerion. “What are you doing here all by yourself? You could have gotten lost.”

Tyrion held out the pendant and the chain. “I broke her necklace.” He started crying. “I broke it.”

———

 _Hello, Joanna_ , Gerion thought. _You would find him, wouldn’t you?_

Gerion took the pendant from Tyrion and turned it over in his hands. The gold lacked the luster he remembered.

“I’m sorry! _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_!”

“Tyrion, it’s alright. We’ll have it fixed and back in its place before anyone is the wiser.”

Tyrion still looked so upset. Gerion remembered another little boy, and thought it was worth a try to make Tyrion smile.

“If your mother were here, she would give you her haughtiest look,” Gerion tried to imitate it, but fell short. He wasn’t surprised. “And then she would sigh deeply and say, ‘I suppose I must become accustomed to you breaking things.’”

“But I didn’t mean to break it! I won’t break anything else!”

Gerion laughed inside at just how much Tyrion sounded like Jaime, when Joanna had caught the boy. He arched an eyebrow and let the corners of his mouth curve upward, the barest hint of the smile he wanted to flash. He tried to pitch his voice higher, to mimic hers. It was a poor copy. “My little lion, I lived in King’s Landing half my life. You need to lie better than that to convince me.”

“But it wasn’t a lie! I won’t break anything else. I _promise_.”

Tyrion sounded so pathetic. Gerion doubted he was having as much fun teasing his nephew as Joanna had had with Jaime.

And then Gerion’s breath caught. He could see his cousin’s burnished curls out of the corner of his eye. They shined so much more brightly than the gold in his hand. He wanted to look at her, to look at her face and remember what had been. Instead, he reached for her lovely, lilting voice again. This time he found it.

“‘Oh, really? You promise you will never break my heart? You expect me to believe that, from a boy as handsome as you?’”

When Joanna had said it, Gerion remembered how promptly Jaime had responded, with his big, roguish grin: “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Joanna had pretended to pout. “Away with you, you knave. One day, Jaime, you will find a lady far younger than I. You will forget all about your poor mother, and you will break my heart.”

Jaime’s face had become so serious for once. “Never, Mother! I would never forget you.” He had bent his knee, and said solemnly, “On my honor as a Lannister, I vow never to break your heart.” Oh, how Joanna had laughed at her little knight. She had warned him never to make vows he couldn’t keep and shooed him outside.

But, here, now, this other little boy only stared up at him.

“Would she really say that?” Tyrion finally asked. His voice was very small.

Gerion bit his lip. He didn’t even know if Joanna had known Tyrion’s name. “I-”

Her green eyes flashed fiercely.

_(Joanna, soaking wet in the autumn rain.)_

_(“You should ride back, my lady. We’ll find them soon enough.”)_

_(“No.”)_

_(The hounds, howling.)_

_(“Cersei and Jaime will be safe in your arms before evenfall. Go back, Joanna.”)_

_(“No.”)_

_(She pulls her cloak around herself, shivering in the cold.)_

_(“Casterly Rock would be more comfortable for you, my lady.”)_

_(She reins in her horse. “Would you say that to my lord husband?”)_

_(He doesn’t dare answer.)_

_(Her green eyes flash fiercely. She clenches and unclenches her fists. Her claws.)_

_(Where is your lady’s veil, cousin? You are close to fraying, if we can see your true form.)_

_(“Kevan!” she calls out. “Would you tell your brother - repeatedly - to return home? If the Lord of Casterly Rock were here now, instead of in King’s Landing, would you tell him to go back?”)_

_(“No, Joanna.”)_

_(She looks around.)_

_(“Would any of you like the Hand of the King to learn that his men were more concerned with my whereabouts than the whereabouts of his missing children?”)_

_(Silence.)_

_(“The next man who suggests I go back, I will hang.” Joanna looks each of them in the eye. They look back at her in fear. Those who didn’t know her finally see her for what she really is. “My daughter and my son are lost. **My children**. I want them back. If anyone so much as speaks an unkind word to them while they are out of my arms, that person will die screaming.”)_

Gerion had forgotten that until now. Cersei and Jaime had ridden off alone, and gotten lost. For two days, they searched the hills and valleys around Casterly Rock. Joanna saw their horses first, outside a peasant woman’s cottage. Gerion had expected her to sob in relief when she saw them. Instead, she had fallen to her knees, like a woman at prayer, her head bent over her Maiden and her Warrior.

“Would my lady mother really have said that I am handsome, Uncle?”

Tyrion’s question snapped him back to the present. Those golden curls – a lion’s mane, in truth – still waited at the edge of his vision.

 _…an unkind word…_ Her breath was a warm draft against his ear.

“I am quite certain that the Lady Joanna would tell you you’re handsome, lad.”

Gerion watched as Tyrion looked up at the statue of the golden lioness. “I promise I will never break your heart, Mother. Would you lift me up, Uncle?”

Gerion set his nephew on top of the sepulcher. The lioness was bigger than he was.

Tyrion was immediately drawn to the golden plaque set in the marble top. He traced the words with his short fingers as he read them aloud.

 _Mine._  
Yours.   
But need I speak twice?   
Where you live, I live.   
Where you die, I will die.   
But need I speak twice?

“Who wrote this?”

“Your mother.” _No, Joanna, you didn’t need to speak twice,_ Gerion silently told the woman standing near him. _You were more accurate than you could ever know. You made him yours and never gave him back. Even in death. Are the two of you happy together? Does he smile for you still, wherever you keep him?_ She refused to answer.

“She and your father often exchanged letters while he was away in King’s Landing.”

“May I read them?”

“Your father burned all of them, after…. We wouldn’t have even had these words, if your Aunt Genna hadn’t recalled them from memory.”

Tyrion went over to the lioness and carefully traced her face. “What was she like?” Tyrion didn’t turn around, but kept looking into the lioness’s eyes.

Gerion resisted the urge to turn around and look at her. “Joanna was more beautiful than any of us.” _More beautiful and more lethal._ “She loved your father, and your father loved…he loved her more deeply than words can say.” _You always got everything you ever wanted, didn’t you, Joanna? You took my brother from me._ Gerion wanted to lash out at her, the only way he still could. He looked at Tyrion. _“_ _He was not the same man after she died, Imp. The best part of him died with her.”_

Gerion instantly regretted his words. Tyrion turned and looked at him, hurt and surprise in his eyes. He tried to make up for them. “Even before you were born, your lady mother loved you very, very-”

“Is that why there are two?”

“What?” Gerion didn’t understand.

Tyrion gestured to the rest of the crypt. “Everyone else has one lion. Even Grandfather and Grandmother.” Tyrion pointed to the next grave, where one lion lay sleeping, his head resting on his sword. “My mother has two, a lioness and a lion.” Tyrion touched the head of the lion that lay at the lioness’s feet. His piercing eyes were open, a sword at the ready by his side. “Is the lion for my father?”

“No.” _Yes._ “We –Kevan and Tyg and Genna and I – we just didn’t want her to be alone.” _We didn’t want him to be alone, until the ending of the world. He wouldn’t have been able to bear it_.

Tyrion turned back to the lioness, and gently kissed her check. “I’m happy you aren’t alone, Mother. It’s terrible to be alone.” Tyrion started to remove his doublet.

“What are you doing, Tyrion?”

Tyrion wouldn’t look at him. “I don’t want her to be cold. It’s too cold here.”

That made Gerion smile a little. “You don’t have to worry about your mother being cold. She could melt the Wall if she wanted to.” He helped his nephew put the doublet back on. “Come on, Tyrion. Get down now.”

But Tyrion wasn’t paying attention to him.

“I’m sorry I broke your necklace. I’m sorry.” The boy was sobbing. “I’m sorry I broke you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you died. I’m sorry. I’m sorry Father died. I’m sorry! _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_!”

Gerion finally saw her.

She ran passed him, her golden hair fanning out behind her and her tears trailing down her cheeks. She faded under his gaze. He wished he could close his eyes and let her enchantment continue, but Joanna had never been a woman anyone could look away from. That had been part of her enchantment too.

She reached out her arms toward her youngest child, but already she was gone. Gerion couldn’t imagine how much it hurt her, to be so powerless.

 _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_!” Tyrion was still crying.

Gerion reached out and picked him up, pressing Tyrion’s head against his shoulder. “She knows, love.” He choked on the words. “She knows.”

_You already broke your promise, Tyrion. You broke your mother’s heart._

____________

“You’re funny. You’ve _always been funny_.” Cersei licked her lips and smiled, but her eyes held so much pain. It was an old wound, one that could never heal. “But none of your jokes will ever match the first one, will they? You remember. Back when you ripped my mother open on your way out of her and she bled to death.”

Tyrion pressed his lips together tightly. He couldn’t speak for a moment through his own pain.

 _“She was my mother too_ ,” he said simply.

_I met her in the Hall of Heroes._

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at joannalannister.tumblr.com 
> 
> I'm also on twitter at @jolannister
> 
> The original URL for this fic was at http://lions-of-the-rock.tumblr.com/post/20578117836


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